Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO.pdf - Program on Strategic ...

entanglement is growing stronger than fear of
ab<strong>and</strong>onment among the now geopolitically
sheltered allies.
• <strong>Weapons</strong> arrangements that do not lend themselves
to permanent territorial occupation by
an attacking force <strong>and</strong> imposition of an alien
regime. Thus those arrangements do not pose
such a degree of risk that a side would be willing
to accept horrendous casualties <strong>and</strong> destruction
in order to avoid that risk.
• Affirmative symbols of moral burden-sharing
based on common values—the schiksalsgemeinschaft,
115 or shared community of fate—within
the transatlantic relationship, this at a time
when the United States is announcing its shift
of strategic attention to the Pacific (but Alliance
solidarity may be further weakened by the predictable
intra-allied disputes which have been
seen to occur whenever TNW issues become
prominent).
• Devices for sharing nuclear functions <strong>and</strong> responsibilities,
but with countries that find
the prospect of an injection of what Thomas
Schelling called “pure violence,” 116 which is
the distinctive, irreducible, strategic function
of nuclear weapons, increasingly distasteful
within their national strategic cultures. So, at
worst, Alliance nuclear-sharing may become
less the proudly-displayed wedding ring of a
happy couple than the suspiciously indiscernible
b<strong>and</strong> of gold of an increasingly ill-matched
<strong>NATO</strong> marriage.
• A class of weapons that was introduced largely
because of the extreme cost effectiveness of its
firepower, <strong>and</strong> the powerful deterrence it was
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